AFC’s Gaskin not ‘sufficiently convinced’ about Region Four RO’s figures
Alliance For Change (AFC) executive Dominic Gaskin yesterday said he was not “sufficiently convinced” that the polling results purportedly declared by the Returning Officer (RO) for Region Four last accurately reflected the statements of poll (SOPs) from the 879 polling stations.
In a Facebook post last night, Gaskin, who is the son-in-law of incumbent president David Granger and the former Minister of Business, said had a difficulty accepting that all the persons and organisations who have so far deemed the process to lack credibility have gotten it wrong.
His pronouncement came ahead of another controversial declaration by RO Clairmont Mingo and on the heels of widespread concerns that a credible process was not being used.
“I believe I am a rational person capable of independent thinking, despite my political affiliation. Given all that has taken place over the last twelve days I am not sufficiently convinced that the results of the Region 4 elections as declared by the GECOM RO last Thursday (March 5th) accurately reflect the results recorded on the various statements of poll collected from the 879 polling stations,” he wrote.
“I have a difficulty accepting that all the persons and organizations who have so far deemed the process to lack credibility have somehow gotten it wrong,” he added, before adding that he could not understand why Mingo would not be “bending over backwards” to convince the various observers that his tabulation process was sound and all his results credible.
“If our election results are as widely rejected as they appear likely to be, then there can be no winners. We all lose. This is not what I campaigned for,” he wrote.
As a result, Gaskin said the Guyana Elections Commission needs to publish their SOPs for all to see. “If not it can never hold credible elections in Guyana again,” he warned.
“Unfortunately none of us can prevent GECOM from taking this process to its obvious conclusion, however, I believe the nation deserves to see all the numbers on which GECOM intends to base its final declaration,” he added.
Gaskin also said that there are many more good Guyanese than there are rotten ones. “It is a shame that good Guyanese are now turning on each other simply because a few rotten eggs are attempting to pull us apart. Time to tone down the hate, accept that we’re all in the same …storm, and work our way out of it,” he pointed out.
Mingo has been roundly criticised by observer groups and all contesting parties save for the incumbent APNU+AFC coalition for not complying with the order issued on Wednesday of Chief Justice Roxane George-Wiltshire.
After finding that Mingo’s purported declaration of results for the region was unlawful as it did not conform to requirements in Section 84 of the Representation of the People Act, the judge said the voter count needed to be tabulated using the SOPs from each of the district’s 879 polling stations for persons present at the exercise to see.
Gaskin, is the first key figure from the AFC to depart from the coalition’s official line of support for the view that it won the general elections.